Q & A with Clowns

‘Freezing In The Sun’ is a taste of what is yet to come from Clowns. The new single sees bright and jangly guitars juxtaposed with politicised lyrics of discontent. The lyrics demanding ‘tell me what the fuck I am supposed to do, when I know my taxes are paying for kids to be held in Nauru’, coupled with the dreamy and mesmerising chorus sung by bassist Hanny J.

In celebration of this single, Clowns are touring Australia, including a stop-over at Solbar on September 29th.

We sent through a few q’s to vocalist, Stevie…

Holy crap, ‘Freezing in the Sun’ is a belter! While not as face-melting as some of the earlier releases, I love the balance between Stevie’s verses and Hanny J’s choruses. Being that the song, lyrically, is about political discontent (and shit, even more relevant now)… was there a particular trigger that set off the inspiration for the lyrics?

We just fuckin' hate what the scum in Canberra are getting away with as of recent we wanted to demonstrate our opinions in a song.

With the clip, you managed to drag in Slatts from King Parrot (who nails the the sleazy PM role), and Nikki from Pagan… did it take much convincing/bribery to get them involved?

Not really. We've known Slatts for years and know that he's great in front of a camera. I think Stevie just folded Nikki's washing and gave her a foot massage in exchange for her acting expertise.

You’ve just finished a massive European tour… how insane was it, and was there a particular show that stood out from the others (and why)?

It was pretty off it's genitals. Wacken music festival was amazing to play. There was a sea of people and they were really getting into.

Doing a little digging, and noticed you’re dropping a brand new track tonight - ‘I Shaved My Legs For You’… sooooo… does that mean a new album’s on the way?

Perhaps ;)

Ok, kinda want to dig further now with Damaged Music. What I love about this is you using your collective knowledge gained from over 8 years in the scene, to create a booking agency built to support local artists. Reading between the lines, there’s a mission statement there that basically sees Damaged want to mentor/nurture artists, with a DIY ethos and strong grass roots/community vibe… how important do you think this approach is, and what would be the eventual overall goal?

I don't think the DIY approach is more or less important than any of the other alternatives, we've sure had a lot of fun doing the punk thing though and think that there is a lot to gain by taking it! I don't think we have an eventual goal but just to use Damaged as another platform to continue doing a lot of the background work to our own band ourselves and if we can help some of our mates a long the way too thats sick!

Also, the latest tee - the very special Peter Dutton-themed one, is a classic. Did you foresee the coming shit storm before this design went to print, or it was just very fast moving (love that $5 from the sale of each tee is donated to Asylum Seekers Resource Centre, by the way)?

We had the idea for years to do a tee with Dutton ugly potato head getting exactly what he deserves illustrated on it for a while. When the whole libspill thing was going down though we thought now was a better time than ever to get it happening. We've done a few politicised t-shirts in the past and it only seems right and fair to donate some money to some of the organisations built to clean up the mess that the fucksticks illustrated on the t-shirts create.

Clowns are no strangers to the Sunshine Coast, having visited a few times now… so anything up your sleeve for the Sept 29th show?

Just our arms. We're gonna play some new tunes though, so that'll be cool.

Thanks heaps for your time! We’ll catch you on the Solbar leg of the ‘Freezing in the Sun’ Tour!